


Sunflowers

by jaythewriter



Series: Misplaced Attachments [4]
Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Gen, M/M, tim gardening is the cutest thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-02-23
Packaged: 2018-01-13 11:43:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1225024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaythewriter/pseuds/jaythewriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim joins Mrs. Kralie in her gardening, trying his best to ignore the goings-on between his companions inside the house. The two end up talking about a certain someone. If you guessed that it's Jay, you would be right.<br/>Part of the Misplaced Attachments series, takes place between Chapters 19 and 20.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunflowers

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning for implied self-harm.

“Dammit!”

“Are you absolutely sure you don’t want gloves?” Tim asks for perhaps the fifteenth time since he and Christina started tending to the garden in front of the Kralie home. He wipes his hands on his jeans , more concerned with the blood he can see seeping from her fingers than the mess he’s making. 

Taking her sliced up fingers in his hands, he carefully wraps another bandage around the freshest cut. If she would just wear gloves, it wouldn’t even be necessary to bring the whole box of bandaids outside in the first place. 

It’s odd. His heart doesn’t race with panic when he touches her like this. Is he that used to having to look after clumsy people? 

(he thinks of the man asleep in the house, the one who he fussed over when he was heaving up his insides or completely unaware of the world going on around him. the thought that maybe that same man has settled his fear of touch and human contact somewhat makes him warm.)

“I’m fine,” Christina insists, huffing and tearing her hands away from his. He shrugs faintly, mumbling ‘suit yourself’ before returning to his work. 

Using his fingers, he creates a tiny hole in the soft soil, a hideaway for the seeds. Taking a packet of sunflower seeds, he drops them in one by one. It’s a strangely soothing exercise; these flowers are going to be growing because of him. Life is going to exist because of him.

“This is like making kids without the commitment and the responsibility,” Tim says without thinking. He flinches a second later when Mrs. Kralie laughs at him, sure that sounded ridiculous.

“You know, I never thought of it that way,” she says thoughtfully, scooping dirt and piling it over Tim’s sunflower seeds. Her eyes go briefly cloudy, as though she’s there with him physically but not mentally. “It’s true, though! I wanted more kids with Sean, y’know, but we never got around to it, so, heh, it’s a nice substitute.”

Tim imagines there being other little Alex Kralies running around, each clutching a camera and wielding a smart mouth. He shudders at the very thought. 

“By the way, thank you very much for joining me out here,” Christina continues. She begins to scoop out another little area for the rest of the sunflower seeds. “You don’t need to. I know how much you like hanging out with that Jay boy. Things are going so much faster with somebody else here, though.”

It takes too much effort for Tim not to choke with laughter. He wouldn’t say he /enjoys/ his time with Jay lately. 

(did he ever ‘enjoy’ it in the first place? was he just taking what little contact he could get from the one person that can tolerate his presence?)

(he definitely doesn’t dislike being around Jay, though. and that’s more than he can say for most people he’s met.)

“You two are very cute,” Christina sighs aloud, handing Tim the watering pot with a smile. He nearly drops it, his eyebrows shooting up behind his bangs.

“Cute?”

The woman’s already faintly flushed face goes a darker red as she touches a mischievous finger to her lips.

“Oh, did I see something I wasn’t supposed to see the other day?”

“I still don’t understand,” Tim huffs, quickly growing frustrated. Maybe he should have stayed inside the house after all. That would mean having to be near Mr. Kralie, though, or Alex and Jay and that’s just about the last thing he could want right about now.

“You kissed him, although it was on the cheek so I suppose I was assuming too much.”

Oh. Right. This time, Tim’s face begins to go dark with color. He turns to the soil, pretending to focus on them instead of the fawning woman beside him. The dirt grows thick and black as he waters the seeds, maybe a bit too much as the water comes trickling out of the soil and into the grass surrounding it.

“We have a very strange friendship,” Tim admits, unsure if that’s even the word he should be using for him and Jay. They might not even have a friendship in the first place, so how could they have a relationship as Christina is implying? Or maybe they do and Tim has been disconnected from society long enough that he sincerely can’t tell if there is a difference?

“I met him when my life was changing pretty rapidly, and he definitely, uh... contributed to those changes,” he continues. He doesn’t add that Jay’s contributions weren’t altogether positive. Putting aside the watering can, he turns his thoughtful gaze to the sky, wondering how he’s meant to explain the circumstances of his and Jay’s meeting to a considerably normal person.

“He and I met onset during Alex’s movie-making back in college, but we didn’t really get close. We hung out maybe once or twice--”

(a drunk Jay smiles lazily at him from Brian’s couch, his face clean of fuzz and cheeks red, and for the first time, Tim catches himself thinking that a boy could be beautiful)

(Brian asks Tim, who is he looking at? and Tim doesn’t know if he wants to answer him, not without giving himself away. Brian would understand, he knows he would)

(but maybe this connection is something he wants to keep for himself and himself alone)

“And I liked him just fine. But we sort of had our own things going on.”

(Tim runs across the college campus, lungs burning from the cold, smelling of forest and blood)

(“Tim, what’re you doing out here?”)

(the beautiful boy looks at him, clutching books, wearing a too big jacket that probably belongs to Alex and he’s so scared, Tim is scaring him)

(so he runs, he keeps running until he gets home, pretending Jay didn’t even see him)

(it’s eighty eight degrees the next day before noon, and Tim shows up onset with dark eyes and hundreds of yawns to share)

(Jay shows up too, but doesn’t ask any questions, just like how Tim doesn’t ask why he’s wearing long sleeves in the heat)

“We ended up meeting again a couple years after school, and, well, we kind of had to get close, for lack of a better word,” Tim says with a sigh, his eyes falling from the grey cloudy sky and back to the soil before him. “Not entirely our choice. But I’d rather not get into that. I’m just happy we’re together and we’re okay.”

“I see,” Christina says softly. She gives him a sad smile, stirring slight discomfort up within him. He doesn’t like pity; he never has and he never will. He’s had enough of it to last a lifetime while serving his time in the hospital. 

He pushes the squirmy feeling down and grits his teeth, though, instead of what he would have done before. Christina doesn’t deserve his anger. She gives him a confused frown, but she doesn’t push him for answers.

“You two obviously went through a lot together,” she continues, dusting her hands off upon her apron before rising to stand. “No wonder it’s hard to put a name to what y’all have...”

“What makes you say that?” Tim asks curiously, eyebrows knit together. Christina pulls that same smile from earlier, the know-it-all grin. 

“You get all moony eyed and have this far off look about you when you talk about him. You look sad, but, content, if that makes any sorta sense. It’s sweet, in its own way.”

Tim freezes, mouth open to maybe deny what she’s saying, maybe to confirm it, but he doesn’t know what to do or what to say. Christina lets him be, choosing to pat his shoulder as she passes by him on her way back to the house.

“I’m done out here for now! Gonna go wash my damn hands now before the cuts get infected,” she announces, practically skipping back into the house. When the screen door swings shut behind her, Tim’s eyes fall back to the soil.

His heart races in his chest, almost painful as it thrums against his ribcage.

If someone he only met a few days ago sees this strangeness about Jay within him... then can Jay see it? Does Alex see it too?

As Tim gently pats the damp soil down, busying himself to keep from having to go back in the house and accidentally running into Jay, he has to wonder whether he actually wants Jay to see that part of him.

What scares Tim is that he thinks he does.


End file.
